Political Paralysis in the Gilded Age

Political Paralysis in the Gilded Age

1869 - 1896

Republicans & GrantElection of 1868

GrantActed as if the Republic owed him for the war

Almost no political experience

500,000 former slaves voted him in office

“Waving the Bloody Shirt” & “Vote as You Shot”

Republican platform Called for continued Reconstruction (military)

Democrats & Seymour

Democratic PlatformDenounced military Reconstruction (could agree on little else)

Candidate – NY governor Horatio Seymour

Era of Good Stealings

Population by 1870 – 39 million3rd largest nation

Waste, Extravagance, Speculation, Graft

Corruption was common

CorruptionJim Frisk & Jay Gould

1869

Tried to corner the gold market

Result: “Black Friday” price of gold went up

Treasury started releasing gold

Boss Tweed – 1871Milked NYC for $200 million

(Tammany Hall)

Fraudulent elections

Thomas Nast – published in NY Times

Prosecuted by Samuel J. Tilden

More CorruptionCredit Mobilier Scandal – 1867 – 1868

Railroad construction company formed by Union PacificOver paid themselvesPaid off members of congressExposed by NY newspaper

2 congressmen censoredVP accepted stock

Whiskey Ring – 1875Robbed treasury of millions in excise tax

Grant’s private sec was involved

Sec of War William Belknap – 1876

Pocketed money from selling Indians junk

Liberal Republican Revolt1872

Liberal Republican PartyUrged purification of the Washington administration & end military Reconstruction

Horace Greeley – Presidential candidateEditor of NY Tribune

Later endorsed by the Democrats “ate crow”

Republicans renominated Grant

Grant won the election of 1872

Depression & Demands for Inflation

Panic of 1873Caused by unbridled capitalist expansion

Produced too much – price goes down, businesses collapse

Banks – loans were not being repaid

Jay Cooke & Company – NY banking firm / first to collapse

15,000 businesses went bankrupt; including The Freedmen’s Savings and Trust Company

Money PoliciesHard-money vs. cheap-money

Hard-money -- get battle-born currency out of circulation & produce no new money

Cheap-money – supported the production of greenbacks, make more money

Hard-money supporters won outResumption Act of 1875 – by 1879, no greenbacks & gold for all paper money

Some supported money based on silver Congress stopped production of silver dollars in 1873 (Crime of ’73)

Call for inflation

Politics in the Gilded Age

Close elections, indecisive politicians

Higher voter interest – 80% voter turnout

Party Loyalists enjoyed successful political careers as a result of patronage & the Spoils system

Fighting within the Republican Party – 1870s & 1880s

“Stalwart” fractionRoscoe Conkling – US Senator from NY

Believed in swapping civil-service jobs for voters

“Half-Breeds” fractionJames G. Blaine – Congressmen from Maine

Civil-service reform

Succeeded in stalemating each other & deadlocking the party

The Hayes – Tilden StandoffGrant was urged to run for reelection

Congress passed a resolution warning of the dictator implications

Republicans selected Rutherford B. Hayes“The Great Unknown”

Democrats selected Samuel J. Tilden

Tilden received 184 electoral votes – he needed 185

Constitution & Votes Specifies that the electoral returns shall be sent to Congress & opened by president of the Senate

Who should count the votes? Constitution doesn’t say

Compromise of 1877Created to solve the election deadlock

Electoral Count Act - passed by CongressSet up electoral commission consisting of 15 men selected from the Senate, the House, & the Supreme Court

Not successful in solving the problem because there were 8 –R and 7-D

Democrats agreed to elect Hayes in exchange for:

Removal of all federal troops in the South

Subsidizing of a southern transcontinental railroad line – not kept

Results of the CompromiseOfficially ended Reconstruction

Violence was averted by sacrificing the black freedmen in the South

Republicans abandoned its commitment to black equality

Civil Rights Act of 1875 – last try by RepublicansSupposedly guaranteed equal accommodations in public places & prohibited racial discrimination in jury selections

Supreme CourtDeclared Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional

Declared that the 14th Amendment prohibited only government violations of civil rights, not the denial of civil rights by individuals

The Democratic SouthSuppressed blacks

Blacks who tried to vote faced unemployment, eviction, & physical harm

1890s – required literacy test, voter registration laws, & poll taxes

Blacks became economically dependantSharecropping & tenant farming

Crop-lien system

Jim Crow Laws1890s – state level legal codes

Validated by Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)Ruled that “separate by equal” facilities were constitutional under the “equal protection” clause of the 14th Amendment

Southern blacks were treated harshly for challenging the South’s racial code of conduct

Railroad Strike 1877Presidents of the nation’s 4 largest railroad companies cut employee’s salaries

Pres Hayes called in federal troops to quell the unrest

Backfired on him, caused support from working-class

Workers stoppages spread

100 dead

Showed the weakness of the labor movement

ChineseMade up 9% of population by 1880 in CA

Mostly poor, uneducated, single males came

Came for gold & railroad workMany returned when work disappeared

Worked menial jobs

Denis Kearney of San FranciscoIncited his followers (Kearneyites) to violent abuse of Chinese

Resented the competition for labor

Stopping Chinese Immigration 1879 – bill passed severely restricting immigration of Chinese

Vetoed by Hayes – violated treaty with China

1882 – Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act Stopped Chinese immigration until 1943

The Garfield InterludeRepublicans nominated dark-horse James A. Garfield

VP – Chester Arthur

Republican platform- protective tariff & reform of civil service

Democrats – nominated Winfield S. Hancock

Democratic platform – civil service reform & a “tariff for revenue only”

Election of 1880Candidates – turned their backs on problems of debt-burdened farmers & powerless laborers

Democrats harped on Garfield’s acceptance of stock dividends in the Credit Mobilier scandal

Garfield won & rewarded James G. Blaine (Half-Breed) with Sec of State

Caused problems between Half-Breeds & Stalwarts

Garfield’s AssassinationCharles J. Guiteau

shot Pres Garfield in the back in a Washington railroad station

Garfield died 11 weeks later – Sept. 19, 1881

Stalwarts would all get good jobs now under Arthur

Guiteau – found guilty & hanged

Chester Arthur No qualifications for the presidency

Gave his former Conklingite supporters (Stalwart) the cold shoulder

Supported civil service reform Pendleton Act of 1883

Established a merit system based on aptitude and not “pull”

Competitive exams were established

Pendleton Act partially divorced politics from patronage, but it helped drive politicians into “marriages of convenience” with big-business leaders

Election of 1884Republican- James G. Blaine

“Mulligan letters” – connected Blaine to a corrupt deal involving federal favors to a southern railroad

Mugwumps – reformers who joined the Democrats

Democrats – Grover Cleveland Illegitimate son

Mudslinging campaignFew fundamental differences between candidates

Cleveland won election

“Old Grover” Takes Over

Grover Cleveland1st Democratic President since Buchanan

Known for all of his vetoes

Laissez-faire

“Though the people support the gov’t, the gov’t should not support the people.”

Named 2 Confederates to office

Believed in the merit system but eventually caved

Vetoed military pensions

Cleveland & the Tariff

Tariffs were raised during the war

Resulted in gov’t surplus

1887 - Cleveland appealed to Congress for lower tariffs

For the first time in years, there was a real issue that divided the parties

Election of 1888

Democrat – Cleveland

Republican – Benjamin Harrison

Republicans were against lowering tariffsLow-tariff policies was a vote for England

Republicans raised $3 million to fight against a lower tariff

Cleveland – 1st sitting president voted out of his chair since Van Buren in 1840

Benjamin Harrison Elected in 1 88 8Selected James G. Blain e as Sec o f StateNamed Theo do re Roo sev elt – head o f the Civ il Serv ice Co mmission

Problems in the House

Republicans – only 3 votes more than the necessary quorum of 163 members

Democrats – delaying motions – roll call

Republicans wanted to squandered money to safeguard the high tariff that was producing a surplus

Thomas B. Reed

Republican Speaker of the House

Wanted to change House rules

Believed majority should legislate in accordance with democratic policies

No filibustering

“Billion Dollar” Congress Gave birth to a bumper crop of expensive legislative babies

McKinley Tariff Bill of 1890

Boosted tariff rates to their highest peacetime level

Disposed of the troublesome surplus by giving a bounty of 2 cents per pound to US sugar planters

Raised tariffs on agricultural productsActually brought new woes to farmers as manufacturers raised prices

Farmers hated it

Pension Act of 1890

Pensions for all Union CW veterans who had served for 90 days & who were now unable to do manual labor

Helped solve the problem for the Treasury surplus

Secured Rep votes

GAR grateful to the GOP

Silver Problems

Bland-Allison Law-1878

Ordered the purchase and coining of $2-4 million worth of silver a monthProvided little relief to debtors or miners

Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890

Required the purchase of 4.5 million ounces of silver every monthTreasury had to issue new notes to pay for it Believed that the addition of immense amount of metallic money would inflate the currency and make for higher prices and easier debt payment

Populist Party – 1892The People’s Party

Rooted in the Farmer’s Alliance of frustrated farmers in the West & the South Platform:

Free & unlimited coinage of silverIncome taxGov’t ownership of telephone, telegraph, & railroadsDirect election of senators1 term for presidentUse of initiative & referendum to allow citizens to propose & review legislationShorter workday & immigration restriction

Problems for Labor

Homestead Strike 1892 – PittsburghSteel plant owned by Andrew Carnegie

Workers were angry over pay cuts

Strikers used rifles & dynamite

Troops were called in

Strike & union of steelworkers was broken

Coming Election of 1892

Discontent gave Democrats high hopes

Democrat – Grover Cleveland

Republican – Benjamin Harrison

Populist Party – James B. WeaverOne of the few 3rd parties in history to break into the electoral column

Populist Party

Wanted to bring labor & farmers togetherColored Farmers’ National Alliance

1 million southern black farmersHoped that their economic goals would overcome their racial differences

Populists appealed for interracial solidarityAppealing to blacks didn’t work because blacks couldn’t vote

Literacy test, poll tax, & grandfather clause

Populist leader Tom Watson abandoned his interracial appeals

Old Grover Cleveland Again

2nd term 1893—only pres to serve 2 nonconsecutive terms Depression of 1893

Lasted for about 4 years Most devastating economic downturn of the century

Causes Overbuilding and overspeculation Labor disorderAgricultural depressionEuropean banks began to call in loans

Cleveland and Depression

Wanted to repeal the Sherman Silver Purchase Act Gold reserve in the Treasury dropped ($100 million) Called Congress into extra session

William Jennings Bryan Championed the cause of free silver in Congress

Cleveland broke the filibuster & Sherman Silver Purchase Act repealed

Alienated the silveritesDisrupted the party

Gold & Job Shortages

Gold reserve sank even lower ($41 million)

Cleveland decided to sell gov’t bonds for gold & deposit the proceeds in the Treasury

Cleveland turned to J.P. Morgan & other bankersBankers loaned the gov’t $65 million in gold

Charged commission $7 million

Helped restore confidence in nation’s finance

Deal angered many

Wilson-Gorman Tariff of 1894

Included a tax of 2% on incomes over $4000

In the Senate, 630 amendments were addedBenefits for sugar trust were added

Did not establish a low tariff / did reduce the rate

Income tax lasted only 1 yearStruck down by the Supreme Court

Result: Republicans won congressional elections in 1894 by a landslide / now a majority